I've always felt that the wirless carriers are ideal players to enter the VoIP game. I continue to think that users, especially consumers want more services from less suppliers.

If the cable companies ever lived through the Sprint PCS deal, which they didn't, they would have been offering four play today. Unfortunately instead of hanging in, they sold off too early.

Sprint which has always been one of the most visionary of carriers in the technology department consistently fails to execute on that vision. The result, great ideas, that others make money off of in small ways. If Sprint would have executed on data when they first announced it and put the Internet on phones, the crossing over to VOIP would have been accelerated by almost ten years. Remember, VoIP is not new. It's only current now because the broadband growth in the USA and around the world has occurred.

In the enterprise, VoIP is not new. It's been there for years. The cannibalization of the retail voice market will occur, but it won't be VoIP or Cellular that does it. New and emerging platforms that cross those two will be the real winners.

Om has a post that includes comments from Burton Group Analyst Irwin Lazar about Enterprise VoIP and how Microsoft enters the equation.

I think that the Enterprise is where the money is. AT&T is clearly headed in that direction. With the SBC merger one has to realize that SBC is already working with Cisco as an integrator. Now add in AT&T as the network and layer in their technology, like they showed at VON last week.

Now what about Cisco? They become nothing but a router company with one heck of a sales force and distribution channel that gobbles up sales leads and converts them better than anyone.

EuroTelcoblog's James Enck discovers a flaw in the Skype multi user chat system and waxes on about it.

One of the aspects of Skype I see is some type of social networking feature being overlayed with it. The Pulver Communicator already has this type of feature built in but until the type of trust system that is available with LinkedIn or ZeroDegrees type of operations, I don't think Skype should let this type of technology be authorized.

Why? Skype's firewall penetration technology is very good at poking the hole through the firewall and even though you trust your friend, I don't think third party trust is really there just yet.

I saw a very big and ugly red display of Packet 8 at my local CompUSA today. With their ugly packaging I don't who would grab for it. A few meters down the aisles was the more attractive Linksys/ATT CallVantage display. Why was I not surprised that the sales floor staff didn't know the difference between Vonage, P8 and CallVantage.

And yet the retailers take the money from the brands like crack in the inner city. I don't get it. The brands pay slotting, MAP and co-op funds for what, self service.

VoIP needs educated floor staff at these stores. They're not getting it at CompUSA, Staples of Frys that I can tell.